If you want to talk about understanding movement and sports training, Adam Angeloff is your guy.
Based out of Northern Virginia, and currently working as a performance trainer and baseball coach for Nova Elite Baseball Academy, and also as a JV Head Coach at Potomac Falls High School, Adam Angeloff works with young athletes in a variety of sports including baseball, volleyball, soccer, and football. We sat down to learn more about his sports training philosophy and how he incorporates the NZ products into his training methods.
What considerations do you have to make as a sports trainer for youth and adolescent athletes?
There’s somewhat of a difference between 11 years and younger, and 13 years and older. A lot of times with the younger group, this is their first time working with someone to understand the movements. There’s a process of building a foundation so that they understand what we’re looking for and where they should feel their power coming from. With the older kids, and even adults, there’s still part of that base building, but sometimes they’ve already worked with someone and their concepts might have been taught a little differently. I approach those training sessions by encouraging an open mind and trying to get my athletes to understand what they’re feeling, or what is different so that we can work through whatever barriers have been created through previous training. I’m a strong believer that there is more than one way to learn something, so I try to offer different ways to learn and understand things.
How do you use the NZ Cordz resistance tools?
I primarily use the resistance bands, I use them for power, agility, acceleration, and getting the guys to feel the concepts and muscle groups working. Especially when I get someone new, after the first one or two sessions I put them on the resistance bands. When it’s time to take them back off for the first time and ask them to do the same exact thing without the band, they notice how much easier it is. The bands teach you to use your entire body, entire muscle, to push through something. One of the big things I ask them, especially in baseball but in all sports, is what do you do most of? What’s more efficient, a push or a pull? We’re looking to push off the ground to create power and increase acceleration. In the resistance bands, when we sprint, if you feel it in your hamstring, you’re pulling and you’re wrong. But if you feel it in your quad when you’re pushing off, then you’re feeling it correctly. The bands teach them to understand the movements on their own, and hopefully how to correct them too. We try to teach the movements in training so that when they get onto the field, they’re focused on the more important aspects of the games. We also do a lot of training in the weight room, and I teach that any compensations they’re creating in there, will carry over onto the field. We try to correct those compensations to become more efficient in the movements, by isolating and focusing on one specific movement, instead of the transitional or combination movements.
My favorite TurfCordz® product is the bungie bands and belts. I incorporate them in two areas, basic and sport-specific training. Basic training covers basic concepts of acceleration, Deceleration, agility, and power through running, jumping, and shuffling with added resistance. Sport-specific training tends to the sport the athlete is playing. With the bands, the purpose is to create body control and connect the basic concepts to certain movements of live play using resistance. For example, a volleyball player moving in a direction against resistance to bump or set a ball. Or a baseball player reacting to a ground ball by pushing off to complete a backhand. Once the resistance is removed, the athlete is able to react quicker with less effort on form and more focus on the task they are looking to accomplish.
How did you adjust your training during the COVID-19 pandemic?
We were shut down last year, not allowed to play baseball and any of my other performance training was also shut down. I spent most of my time creating Zoom workouts for our travel organization and trying to keep something going for these guys without being able to get together. I created a virtual push-up contest where kids could challenge each other throughout the month. It was a great team chemistry builder for them, and eventually, we started back at training 1:1, or outdoors, in small groups, etc. Last year before COVID, we were considered one of the weaker teams, and while everyone else was sitting down, we took advantage of it and our boys changed tremendously. We play at the AAA level now.
Be sure to follow Adam Angeloff’s Youtube, Instagram, and Facebook profiles for more training videos and see how he incorporates resistance training with his young athletes!
